


The Only Thing You Can Do With Regret Is Move Forward

by Ribbons_Undone



Series: Second Chance [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag 03x16, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ribbons_Undone/pseuds/Ribbons_Undone
Summary: Sam wishes he had told Dean how he felt. Now it's all he can think about.Episode tag 03x16
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: Second Chance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834855
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	The Only Thing You Can Do With Regret Is Move Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Grab the tissues guys...
> 
> This sort of fic has probably been done before, but I had the title stuck in my head and needed to throw it at something. 
> 
> Don't be like me. Don't regret shit. Whoever it is, whatever the circumstances, tell them you love 'em.
> 
> (Because 15 years later you will still be looking back, wondering what might have been and all you'll have is sloppy, angsty fanfiction.)

As Sam bent over the still and bloody body of his brother, there was one thing that kept spiraling in his head, dragging him to the very depths of despair.

_I should have told him._

Even long after he's buried his brother’s cold corpse, the thought returns almost every hour of the day. It follows him like a shadow, like a weight across his shoulders that he can't seem to shake.

Every time he wakes up to the quiet motel room and sees the bed next to his empty and untouched… Every time he puts gas in the Impala and cranks the key over in the ignition. Every time he accidentally hits a pothole. Every time he stops at a diner and sees pie on the menu.

Every Tuesday.

Every time he sees a hot girl he knows is just Dean’s type. Every time he goes into a hunt alone. Every time he barely scrapes through it alive.

_Should have told him how I feel._

Every time he smells his brother’s aftershave in his repurposed duffel bag. Every time he falters at the passenger side door, placing his hand on the handle before remembering that _oh yeah_ , Dean isn’t there to drive. Every time he hears Metallica, or ACDC, Asia, or that one Bon Jovi song on the radio…

Every time he throws one of Dean’s old tapes into the stereo, just to bring back the memory of his voice, the look on his face as he bobs his head—one hand on the steering wheel, the other on his thigh tapping to the beat of the music.

Every time he turns the engine off and the music cuts out.

_Should have—_

Every time he falls asleep to the still motel air, to the lonely bed he turns into each night.

Every time he slips a hand under the waistband of his boxers when he can’t fall asleep.

Every time he pulls his brother’s leather coat to his nose and takes a long, deep whiff of a smell that can only ever be _Dean_ —grease and dust and gunpowder and sweat...

Every time he tells himself he won’t do it again…and every single time he is too weak to keep that promise.

Every time he takes a girl to bed just so that he doesn’t have to be alone. Just so that he can hold her and fuck her the way he knows Dean would have done. Just so that for eight glorious seconds he can forget.

_Every_ time he comes.

_I love you, Dean._

Now it’s too late. Now there’s nothing he can do. There’s no use telling secrets to the dead. They don’t listen. They don’t talk back. All Dean can do now is lie there, still and lifeless, buried under six feet of loose soil that in three months or so will be packed down so tight it will be like he has always been there. The grass will grow--fresh and green over the borders of the three by six hole that Sam dug _on his own_ and all that will be left to mark the grave will be the meager wooden cross Sam has built for him.

Now all he has is a lifetime of loneliness and regret to look forward to.

Because it’s not like Hell to believe in second chances.

Unfortunately for him, the only thing you can do with regret is move forward.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write angst, but when I do, I try my darndest to make my readers cry.
> 
> My throat got a little sore writing this, so that's a good sign.
> 
> There will be more. I just haven't come up with a good working title for the series or an idea of where this is going. :/


End file.
